John Singleton with Bob Howard, Rip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), p. 117-19, under the heading “History”.

Events such as Watergate have made one thing clear at last, and that is that we, the public, know very little about what really goes on in the dirty world of politics. And that little that we do know usually finds its way into circulation by devious and painful means.

The veil of secrecy that surrounds the operations of governments all over the world makes life very difficult for historians. They may know that a certain event occurred, but usually can only guess at how. Their guesses, of course, are very likely to be influenced by their particular point of view. Thus, a Marxist may interpret an event one way, a conspiracy-theory adherent may find another, and an apologist for a particular government may find yet another. There are almost as many theories as there are historians.

Out in the community, the various vested or ideological groups will search out those works that reinforce their own beliefs and begin to champion them. And those mysterious people somewhere in the education system, who decide what is going to be studied in our State schools, will make their decisions at to what constitutes “correct” or “official” history, and decree that this be taught at the gospel to all our helpless children in the government monopoly schools.

Out of this process there arise certain viewpoints which are widely held throughout the community, which are probably best viewed with a very healthy cynicism. For example, who is prepared to say that they know the real stories about the events leading up to World Wars I and II, Korea, Pearl Harbour, Vietnam, Timor, Rhodesia? What’s the real story behind the assassination of President Kennedy? Who knows what Henry Kissinger talks about as he trots around the world? What is the currency in which he trades — money, countries, people, military bases or what? What does our own Prime Minister talk about in his secret chats in Moscow, Peking or Washington? What do the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and even our own A.S.I.O. do?

It can probably be said, then, that history is at least twenty-five years behind the times. By the time that number of years have passed, the principle players will have departed from the scene, and some secret documents will begin to be declassified and made available to historians. Then, and only then, can some certainty creep into the history of the period. Old theories will be proved or disproved, and the books rewritten.

From all the available material, we make our own choices. All we can do is be as objective and as fair as possible (if we are after the truth, that is, and not simply looking for some convenient rationalisation for our prejudices). If we are after the truth, we cannot simply believe everything we read. We have, somehow, to arrive at a basis for trusting the viewpoint and the scholarship of particular historians.

As the views expressed in this book are almost always contrary to those popularly held, it is probably not surprising that we should line up behind the group of historians whose views are equally contentious. This group of historians is known as the Revisionist School.

What may be surprising to some readers is that they are mainly “left wing” historians. They are, for example, such people as Gabriel Kolko, William Appleman Williams, David Horowitz, James Weinstein and Walter LeFeber. Or others, such as Harry Elmer Barnes, A.J.P. Taylor, Murray Rothbard, Arthur Ekirch, Garet Garrett, J. Richard Barnet, James J. Martin, T.S. Ashton and Charles Beard.

These people specialise in debunking myths, and in particular they outline the ways in which ruthless, greedy and ambitious men have used the State to further their own ends, regardless of the cost in human energy, suffering or even life itself. They lay out the manoeuvring behind the World Wars and the Cold War. They analyse and condemn the imperialism of Great Britain and the U.S.A. They strip the corporate State of all its camouflage and reveal it for what it is — a gigantic machine of expropriation and oppression.

They detail the ways in which businessmen have used the government to gain special privileges, and the way politicians have deceived the voters about their real intentions and reasons for doing things.

Perhaps one of the most shocking examples of both the differences between “official” and revisionist history, and the terrifying callousness and immorality of politicians, is to be found in the real story behind Pearl Harbour, thus involving a reluctant U.S.A. in World War II.

Revisionist history presents a very different picture. 1 It details the economic embargoes that the Roosevelt Administration placed on Japan, thus depriving Japanese industry of necessary raw materials. It details the months of diplomacy prior to Pearl Harbour as Japan sought a peaceful resolution of these trade problems. It points out that the Americans had cracked the Japanese diplomatic code, and how top ranking American officials then knew of Japanese intentions to break off diplomatic relations with the U.S.A., thus signifying the outbreak of war.

It points out that Roosevelt and his senior military and naval advisors were aware of the imending attack on Pearl Harbour hours before it occurred, and how they did not warn the naval and military commanders in Pearl Harbour until hours after the attack had occurred.

Revisionist history then details the shabby attempts by the Roosevelt administration to cover up their monstrous actions, and how they made scapegoats of the Pearl Harbour commanders. It details Roosevelt’s eagerness to get American into World War II, the unconstitutional agreements his administration entered into with the British and their Allies, and the necessity of manoeuvring Japan into firing the first shot so as to overcome the anti-war feeling prevalent at that time in the U.S.A. (as well as to avoid the problems they would face should their unconstitutional agreements become known).

And all these by a Roosevelt elected in 1940 on the promise: “I give you one more assurance. I have said it before, but I shall say it AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

The documentation of these Revisionist claims, and the arguments they assemble, are overwhelming.

For a world that has recently witnessed Watergate, the Lockheed scandals, the fall of Willi Brandt in Germany and Prime Minister Tanaka in Japan, and Australia’s own Loans Affair of the Whitlam era, the revelations of the revisionist historians should not come as a surprise. But such is our infinite capacity for self-delusion, they probably will.

Footnote

  1. For the story of Pearl Harbour, see in particular Harry Elmer Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Greenwood Press Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1969; Harry Elmer Barnes, Pearl Harbour After a Quarter of a Century, Arno Press, New York, N.Y., 1972; and Adm. R. Theobald, Final Secret of Pearl Harbour, Devin-Adair, Old Greenwich, Conn., 1954. For a list of Revisionist History books on other topics, see Bibliography. ↩